


Kissing Shane.

by EnochianLullabies



Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series)
Genre: Christmas, Fluff, M/M, fluff!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-18
Updated: 2020-09-18
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:28:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26526001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EnochianLullabies/pseuds/EnochianLullabies
Summary: “You’re being serious.”“Just a peck, don’t get your panties in a twist.”“Ryan Bergara, are you asking to kiss me?”Ryan rolled his eyes “I’m offering, you big idiot. You take the opportunity of kissing the one and only Ryan Bergara or you let it go forever, your choice.”
Relationships: Ryan Bergara/Shane Madej
Comments: 8
Kudos: 97





	Kissing Shane.

The first time he kissed Shane (well, the first time they kissed) it was, of course, at a Buzzfeed party. Because obviously all chaotic decisions that would make Ryan toss and turn around his bed for months come from Buzzfeed. It was a halloween party, and even old employees were invited, which meant it would be a disaster. They had gone there separately, in fact they didn’t talk at all that day, but a week or so before they had been having lunch, getting ready for a shoot when Shane said “Zoinks!” jokingly, and all had come rolling after it. They had made sure their costumes where on point, Ryan had almost been late to the whole party thing just because he couldn’t stop looking at himself in the mirror and laughing at how weird the blond hair and orange neckerchief looked on him. That’s why Shane got to the party way before him, so when he got in everyone understood why Shane was dressing up as Shaggy, hugging a big as hell Scooby Doo teddy.

“Hey, Fred!” Shane called when he saw him, they stood together and the team snapped a pic that would, surely, go viral with their fans.

“How’s it going, bro?”

“Fred wouldn’t ever say that! Stay in character, Ryan!”

“Let’s split up, gang!” he answered and turned, making it look like he was going to go; but he didn’t, he turned and smiled. “Better?”

“It’s been pretty boring without you, Fred, let’s not split up for now” winked Shane, and Ryan looked away, they started talking and drinking, every time he called Shane ‘Shane’ and not ‘Shaggy’, Shane would make a fuss about it, maybe because of it they were left alone at a corner in the party, except for the interns that sometimes asked for a photo or to touch Scooby, and Shane looked very uncomfortable but said yes anyway, standing all Shaggy like for the photo. At the end even Ryan was pretty in character, he was sad that Fred didn’t really had a short catchphrase that he could use from time to time, like Shane was doing every time someone touched his shoulder to ask for photos.

After some time had passed you could not only smell the alcohol in the room, but _feel_ it, sticking to their skin, and in the breaths of everyone, people were starting to sit on the couches and weren’t able to go back up. It was a matter of time, really, for Eugene to show up and tell them that he had always thought that something was fishy in between Shaggy and Fred.

“What are you talking about?” Ryan answered, but he was laughing. It had been a long time since he tried to be sure everyone saw him and Shane as ‘No Homo’ as possible, he liked what he had with Shane, and if people misunderstood it, it wasn’t a big problem, not his that’s for sure. As long as he wasn’t the one misunderstanding. Which he had started doing at some point. But that was something he promised to not think about unless it was 4 a.m. and he was alone in his bed, looking at the celling, feeling all kinds of lost and alone without Shane sleeping beside him.

“I think Shaggy was to stoned for him to have anything fish with anyone” answered Shane, looking at Ryan. The three of them laughed at that, and Ryan thought that would be the end of it, and no one was hurt! Awesome! But more people had pick up in the conversation.

“Velma was a lesbian, that’s for sure; so she wasn’t really a romantic interest” added Steven, popping out of nowhere, his hands up as if they were forgetting crucial evidence.

“What the…” murmured Ryan, where the hell had he come from? He couldn’t point out that she and Shaggy had indeed been together at some point, hadn’t they? It didn’t matter, Velma as a lesbian he could see it. Fred as… gay? Well, yes, he could see that too. But… ‘Ryan, stop with the toxic masculinity’, he could hear that phrase in Shane’s voice ‘Zoinks!’ the Shane in his head added. Ryan was about to laugh to loudly as an answer to the stare from Eugene and Steven, and make everyone uncomfortable, but, for some reason, the office had decided that the conversation wasn’t private anymore! It was a party within a party, hurray!

“Oh! I loved Scooby Doo!” said an intern, had Ryan met her before? Had any of them?

“Do you think Shaggy and Fred did the nasties?” asked another one. And okay, everyone was laughing, and happy, and not preoccupied about their sexualities or why they had been dreaming about their best friends at least once every fortnight for two months now. Except for Ryan who was starting to feel a little anxious. Every time he wanted to speak, change the subject or clarify what a great _joke_ everything was, another new voice was in the debate, and, after a few minutes, it looked like the whole room was talking about it while he was there, looking like Fred, and Shane was right next to him, with a hand in his shoulder, looking like Shaggy. And a few seconds later everyone was chanting for a kiss.

And Shane was laughing. “Okay, time to call this party over. You all have had too much to drink!” he shouted over the chants, and everyone started to boo but they stopped asking to see a kiss, laughing.

Shane looked at Ryan. Ryan looked like he was thinking, what was never, ever, a good thing when it came from Ryan; it either ended in Ryan not talking to him for a whole day will he ‘thought about things’, like a couple months before, after coming from a shooting, Ryan had been specially scared that day, be it the premise of a demon or the lugubrious place, probably both and the adding of the spirit box laughing at them when Shane asked the demon to kill him, and the posterior ‘come to hell’, that Ryan was sure he had heard; because of all that Shane had sleep right next to him, letting Ryan curl into his arms, shivering, and talked to him about history (pretty history, nothing about people dancing to death), till he had fallen asleep. The next day, coming back home, Ryan said he had been thinking, ‘When after or before pissing your pants in there, baby?’ he had answered laughing, Ryan had punched him and rolled his eyes, but he hadn’t talked to him at all for 24 hours; Shane started to thought that maybe Ryan had had such a bad time in the house that he was thinking about calling off Unsolved, at least Supernatural; next day Ryan send him a message to have dinner together, Shane prepared for the worse, but they only had dinner, a pretty good pizza, and after a few drinks, and like that everything was back to normal.

Well, no to Ryan, who had discovered something pretty interesting about himself and his taste in men; it turns up that he did like men, tall and stupid, and named Shane, at least. Shane was looking at him now, an eyebrow up, waiting for him to say whatever the hell he was thinking.

Ryan was thinking that, right before him, he had the opportunity for everyone to stop reminding him he was too much like a frat guy, and stop making ‘no homo’ jokes at him every time they showed him any kind of affection; can’t a guy get a hug for one coworker on his birthday without him whispering ‘No homo’ to his ear? He had changed! It was also (and he wasn’t trying to think about it, about that night cuddling with Shane, about him caressing his hair and how much he had wanted to kiss him in the morning; he really wasn’t, but it was impossible not to… not to think about it), his opportunity to kiss Shane and, maybe, stop thinking about kissing Shane.

“What about giving the audience what they want?” Ryan whispered to Shane, Eugene pick up on that and opened his eyes wide. He shrugged, and Shane who smiled when he had heard it, thinking it was a joke, stopped doing so when he didn’t hear the punchline.

“You’re being serious.”

“Just a peck, don’t get your panties in a twist.”

“Ryan Bergara, are you asking to kiss me?”

Ryan rolled his eyes “I’m offering, you big idiot. You take the opportunity of kissing the one and only Ryan Bergara or you let it go forever, your choice.”

“Well, now how am I going to refuse?” Shane said. They faced each other and Shane laughed for a second “you’re so small.”

“That’s it, change of plans, you go kiss one of your tree-friends.”

“Hey, no, I was kidding, come here” Shane said, taking his wrist so Ryan couldn’t move “come here” he whispered. And all the office was looking at them again. Shane hand went to his nape and Ryan shivered, he, like an idiot in love (which he was not), closed his eyes.

The preparation lasted much longer than the kiss. A light, almost inexistent peck to Ryan lips, and Shane’s heat was gone again. But Ryan was sure he would be able to feel his breath on his lips like a tingly feeling forever.

Everyone was cheering, Shane was laughing, Ryan tried to smile and not look like he was feeling a lot of things he wasn’t supposed to be feeling. After that the party slowly started to die down, and Shane was gone, he sat there, right where they had been standing, hugging the Scooby Doo teddy, waiting for Shane to come back, like a lost child. He hated himself a little. He was also close to puking butterflies. At some point, after what was a long time for peeing, Shane went back to him.

“Hey, Ry, I’m going, I think I’m one beer away from dying and…” he turned around and looked at a cute internet that waved at him, Shane smiled back at her and looked at Ryan.

Ryan wanted to shout at Shane, to tell him ‘Can you see I’ve been waiting for you to come back?’, to take Shane by the shoulders and kiss him again, for good this time. But he just smiled, like the idiot he was, and told him “Okay, yeah, I’ll be going soon too”. And five minutes later, the time he considered it would have taken for Shane to get his things and that girl things out of the wardrobe and for them both to get out of the building, he went to get his jacket, Scooby still by his side. He wished he had waited a little longer, because he found Shane kissing that girl, and it wasn’t a light peck like the one he had given Ryan. He felt stupid, like Shane had rewarded him for being a good boy and not causing a scandal just because some people were insinuating they had something going on, and then after that, Shane had gone and clarified that they indeed were nothing but friends to everyone on the office. He could have wear a banner saying ‘I’ll never bone that guy, please, you guys!’ and it’d have hurt less.

Ryan looked away, he though ‘hurt?’ and then decided to, even if he still preferred not to think about it, stop pretending he wasn’t head over heels for Shane.

As he walked pass them he thought how happy he would be if Shane stopped kissing that girl and asked him what was the matter, why was he looking so miserable. But Shane didn’t even notice him. He fantasized about being brave enough to yell and proclaim that he loved him, or, at least, liked him very much. On the ride back, he put his hand on his tight, imagining it was Shane’s, telling him how terrible sorry he was for no noticing sooner.

At home, with his pajamas on, teeth brushed and dumb fucking wig of, he thought of Shane knocking on his door and asking for him to let him in, kissing him as soon as Ryan opened the door, kissing him like he was kissing that girl, making him lay in the couch, and taking off that stupid green t-shirt, and Ryan’s basket themed pajamas.

None of those things happened, of course. But at some point, probably half an hour after Ryan had stopped turned and rolling around in his bed and decided to get a glass of milk, falling asleep on the couch in the living room, his phone lighted up.

“Hey, Ry.

You okay?

Home?”

Ryan didn’t notice it till next morning. His heart shrunk a little, thinking Shane had woken up next to that girl, and probably was sending her home, or worse, having sex with her again; but he answered.

“Hey

Yes, everything alright.

Fell asleep as soon as I touched the bed.”

And after a couple of minutes of pacing around, putting the glass of milk from last night in the sink, washing it, drying it, and putting it back in the cupboard. Taking the wig, putting it with the rest of the costume, deciding to store everything in the back of his wardrobe, un-deciding it and taking them out, deciding he would sell them, the costume and the Scooby teddy, or gift them, or whatever. He was brave enough to add:

“How was the night?” and he even put a moon emoji next to his interrogation mark. Talk about being a grown up.

Ryan went and tried to make breakfast, but it was difficult to make anything while you hold your phone, unblocking and blocking it again every two seconds to check if you have a notification. Ten minutes passed before Shane answered.

“I’m still hurting all over” and a moon emoji.

Ryan throw the phone on the counter, shattering the cover glass, and started making breakfast then, even if he wasn’t sure he would be able to eat it.

After that they were a couple of almost kisses, one of them was in mid-November or so, they were out in location, filming, and it had been quite stressful, Shane had been an asshole and he seemed to notice because he said sorry and offered to buy breakfast in a lost city in Montana; and when they were going back to the car, just before leaving the restaurant, Shane took Ryan’s hand and told him he was sorry, like, he actually said those words ‘I’m sorry, Ryan’, Ryan was one second away from perching on him and kissing his dumb-sorry face. He didn’t.

The almost-second time was far more complicated for him to resist. It was almost Christmas, Shane has asked him that morning to go Christmas shopping with him because next day he was leaving to expend the holidays with his parents and he didn’t have anything ready.

“How do you not have anything ready this close to Christmas?”

“Hi, Ryan, good to see you too!” he said, opening the passenger door to his car. “Get in looser, we are going shopping!”

Ryan rolled his eyes but got in the car, Shane was playing all the classics, All I Want, The Little Drummer Boy, The Christmas Song, All I want _again,_ and Ryan was laughing every time a new song started, singing along with Shane.

They got to the mall and Shane looked as lost as if he had been dropped in a maze with no indications “Shane, do you even know what you want to buy?”

“My mom likes to cook? So… maybe an apron?”

“Oh, God, Shane, you’re horrible, do you know that?”

“You tell me every five minutes, baby, I know”

Ryan took his arm and started to navigate the mall. Shane didn’t say anything about how close that was to holding hands and how much more he would appreciate that.

After two hours, that didn’t really feel like it, Shane was putting the last bag of presents in his car. A string of lights was hanging from his neck, Ryan was looking at him like he hung the starts, he just couldn’t look away. Shane closed the trunk and turned, his mouth open as if he had thought of something funny to tell Ryan, but when he saw Ryan he closed it, swallowed, and stayed quiet, thinking that any sudden movement may scare his friend. He stepped closer to Ryan, and Ryan didn’t move backwards, and he was looking so intensely at Shane’s lips… What was he supposed to do?

“Thanks, Ryan” he whispered, closing the last step.

“For what?” Ryan answered, letting Shane put his hand to his check, Shane took a second to answer.

“Being there, even when I’m an asshole” he said.

A car honked and Shane jumped backwards. Ryan laughed at him. They didn’t talk about what could have happened, in favor of maintaining sanity. After all they wouldn’t see each other for about a week, how were they supposed to function haven’t kissed and then not being able to brush it off as a joke the next day?

Ryan send him a text Christmas day, and Shane answered with a pic of him and his brother, both with their noses red from the cold, snow around them, “Happy Baby Jesus Birthday, Ry!” Shane texted back.

And okay, yes, Ryan saved the photo to his gallery, and maybe looked at it a couple times during the day. But just because Shane looked dumb and not handsome and soft at all.

The second time they kissed it was almost a new year, it was the 27th of December, Shane’s brother had come to the city with him, to expend New Year’s Eve in a big party one of his colleges at work had gave him invitations for; he had tried to make Shane go with him, but Ryan had already bought invitations to another party; Shane even send him a text “My brother is trying to vribe me to go to his party!” the day before; “Don’t even think about it! You’re mine on the 31st” Ryan had texted back, and Shane had answered with the stupid moon emoji “kinky” he had added and Ryan had send a sticker of him rolling his eyes.

Things had cooled down since their first kiss (yes, Ryan was still thinking about it almost twice every week), no one was making jokes about them kissing anymore, they first few weeks had been too much even for Shane, who was starting to cast bad looks upon whoever mentioned it; and Shane had never talked about that girl again, so Ryan supposed she was out of the picture, which made him pretty happy and miserable at the same time because he felt like _the gardener's dog, that neither eats cabbage itself, nor lets anybody else do so._

That morning Shane had called him, telling him to not get anything ready for lunch, his brother was making something and he should go and eat with them. Ryan had said yes without thinking too much of it, after all, he and Shane ate together almost every day when they were working, and at least once a week when they were not, and Shane’s brother was cool, nicer than Shane when he wanted; what Ryan hadn’t thought about was that Scott, Shane’s Brother, was also far worse than him when he got his head to something.

So Ryan got ready and went over to Shane apartment. Shane has gone with his parents on the 22nd so Ryan didn’t expect him to have decorated his apartment, even when he had been Christmas shopping with him and had saw him picking up some light and ornaments. So he was pretty surprised when Shane opened the door in a fugly jumper with a big Rudolph, red pom-pom nose and everything, on it, and the light from his Christmas tree almost blinded him.

“Fuck, Shane” Ryan said, laughing “it’s not even Christmas anymore!”

“Happy Christmas to you too, Ry.”

“Hey, I sent you a message as soon as I woke up on Christmas day, you idiot, don’t make me look bad in front of your brother!” Ryan defended himself as Shane’s Brother went to the door to say hello.

“It is Christmas week! And we’re having a Christmas lunch” Shane said, and Ryan rolled his eyes, at his home they didn’t took the decorations down till the 7th of January, after the día de Reyes had passed; so he liked the Idea of Shane still celebrating Christmas, and, also, of him doing so with Ryan.

They sat and ate, Scott had made carbonara pasta, and a couple of very interesting looking tapas, one of them with a prawn looking like a Christmas tree, Ryan only ate that one because he wasn’t a coward to trying things, even if he was scared shitless of them. And no, that didn’t apply to talking to Shane about his feelings. The conversation was coming and going easly, with so many days without seeing each other (Ryan had to remind himself that not seeing your friend for 5 days wasn’t really that much), they had a lot of things to talk about. Shane and Ryan were talking about one of the cases, and then their answers to each other started getting more and more stupid and incomprehensible and at some point they weren’t wheezing anymore they were laughing so much Ryan’s stomach started to hurt; and Scott hadn’t talked for ten minutes because he wasn’t unable to understand what the conversation was about.

Shane’s brother only shook his head and got up to put his plate away “You should come next year” said Shane’s brother, and Ryan, a little blushed for the proposal but very grateful answered with a quite yeah.

Shane swallowed, was he being that transparent? His brother has asked about Ryan before, a couple of times, but inviting him to home in Christmas…, that was far too much, that was as if he was saying ‘Hey, I know, brother, present your boyfriend in society already’. Shane wanted to tell his brother to fuck off, but Ryan whispered that almost silent yeah, and blushed, and wasn’t even looking at him. And Shane decided to remain quiet. He was sure that when the time came Ryan would have already invented an excuse for him to no be able to go, so he didn’t have to cause a fuss when they were enjoying such a nice lunch together for the first time since he had gone to expend Christmas with his parents.

When his brother was back Shane took his and Ryan’s plates and went to discharge them on the kitchen. A tactical error, he was thinking about Ryan’s little smile and that caused him the desire to be a gentleman, leaving Ryan alone with Scott.

“So, Shane told me you kissed before” Scott said the moment Shane left them alone. Ryan could have though before answering Shane’s brother, tell him the story as a little story they could all laugh about, but he didn’t.

“It was a joke!”

“So you have kissed! I knew it, God, Shane you lied to me!” he shouted the moment Ryan answered. Shane came back running. “Oh, and you were talking my ear off about how it was ‘platonic’. Platonic my ass!”

“Scott! Ryan what did you…”

“The party, I, he told me you had told him!”

“I would never, Ryan!” Shane said, close to panicking; Ryan had never seen him this distressed. Scott was laughing, murmuring “I knew it” under his breath. Ryan was getting angry now, what was that ‘I’ll never’ bullshit? Ryan knew he told his brother everything one way or the other.

“Oh, are you ashamed of kissing me?” Ryan said back to Shane. Shane was confused, he didn’t know where the blows were coming from but he was one minute away from running and taking cover; he thought Ryan would be the one falling over to try to get out of The Kiss conversation, it was true that he had changed but from that to being ‘chill’ with Shane telling his family they had kissed, even if it had only been kind of a joke…; he would never in a life time thought not telling his asshole of a brother that they had kiss was going to be the thing that made, for once, Ryan angry at him; not all the skeptical shit, or the teasing, or the almost kiss at that parking lot that Shane thought about every night, thinking he had done wrong not telling Ryan about his feelings first, not asking him if they could kiss. No, what made Ryan so angry he was about to cry was he not telling his brother about a peck.

“Ashamed? For God’s sake, Ryan.”

“Hey, don’t take God’s name in vain” said Scott, still laughing, but less loudly now; just a little guilty for causing all that chaos.

“Ry, seriously, why would I be ashamed of it, stop being difficult” Shane said looking at Ryan, ignoring Scott. Maybe if he ignored his brother long enough he would disappear from his living room.

“’Difficult’! Now I’m being…” Ryan didn’t end the phrase because something at the back of his mind told him that he was, indeed, being quite difficult. He lowered his head.

“Oh, look what you did little bro, you made Ryan sad!”

“You open your mouth again, Scott, and you’re sleeping in a hotel called graveyard today.” Scott put his hands up and made a zipper gesture on top of his mouth. “Come” ordered Shane, and something in Ryan lighted up, a bonfire he didn’t know could be lighted up “Come” he said again seeing that Ryan hadn’t stood up, “please” he added, tired.

Ryan stood up and followed Shane to the bedroom. He felt quite out of place there. Shane sat at the bed, stood up, and sat back again. Ryan would have laughed, but after the little scene he had put up he just wanted to be swallowed by the floor, never to be seen again; nothing to laugh about that.

“So…” Ryan started, because minutes were passing and Shane wasn’t saying anything, and he could feel his own legs trembling; and Shane was sitting there like a…Ryan wasn’t looking at him, but he supposed he was looking like a disappointed father.

“My brother is being an asshole because I ate all the salmon yesterday, I’m sure. Just… pretend he doesn’t exist, or something. I think that’s what I’m going to do, for a couple of years at least.”

“How am I going to do that with him sitting in the living room?” answered Ryan, a little less concerned after knowing Shane was mad at his brother and not at him, he wanted to sit next to him, but he didn’t.

“You know what? You are right. I’m going to kill him; “Shane said looking up at him, he opened his legs and Ryan felt the impulse to walk between them, he didn’t. “I’ll go to jail and I’ll be the guy who killed his own brother, but at least he’ll stop talking, and I’ll make those dudes at jail my bitches. No, I won’t. But I’ll kill him still.” he said, shrugging, Ryan smiled a little and Shane patted the bed next to him so Ryan would sit next to him, Ryan did. “Look, I… I know you are cooler now with people thinking we are a couple or an item or whatever; but I didn’t tell my brother about the kiss, one, because it was a joke kiss, and, two, because I knew he’d misunderstand it and I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable. Somehow I ended up doing it anyway, so hey! Maybe I should have told him, and at least you wouldn’t have thought I’m ‘ashamed’ of you” he said, air quoting and everything. Ryan was trying to assimilate everything so he stayed quiet, he could feel Shane growing more unsettled by the second “Camon, Ry, please, say something.”

“I… I don’t really know what to say, Shane. I’m not panicking anymore when someone calls us a couple. And I know you’re not… ashamed of me, that was me being over dramatic. And… at some point…” Ryan became quiet, he changed his mind, he wasn’t about to say something that Shane could understand as him having feelings, because, what was he going to do if Shane didn’t have them in return? “At some point I hope you kill your brother, too.” He said, and put his hand in Shane’s legs and squeezed. Shane was surprised by the intimacy of it. They hugged and were touching all the time while they talked, the rumors of then being something weren’t coming out of thin air after all; but at that moment, Ryan touching him was something dangerously intimate for Shane and his well-covered feelings.

Shane wanted to squeeze his hand back, to make it stay in his leg, caress Ryan’s cheek and tell him the should kiss again, no joke, no scene, just they loving each other, instead, he said: “Let’s get out before my brother finds new colorful ways to torture us.”

Ryan wheezed and they left the bedroom, Scott was sitting in the couch, and Shane pointed a him aggressively before he could say anything, Scott put his hands up and invited them to sit on the couch next to him and watch ‘Love Actually’, because of course Scott thought that was a good idea.

“I will make popcorn!” he said getting up as soon as he noticed Shane looking at the armchair next to the couch, thinking of sitting there because the couch would be too uncomfortable for the three men to sit together, Scott was all legs, just like Shane. “You sit and watch again the part I started while you made up” he said walking to the kitchen “or made out” he added in a whisper for himself.

“Because if we did not we would be lost, won’t we?” mocked Shane, but Scott was long gone to the kitchen, he sat in the couch and Ryan followed him.

His brother was back five minutes later and sat at the armchair.

The movie session went like this: ten minutes in Scott complained he was cold, Shane throw him a cover straight to his face, twenty minutes in Ryan was almost shivering next to him, his legs already touching, Ryan’s head threatening to rest on Shane’s shoulder; Shane carefully put the other blanket on Ryan’s legs “thanks” he whispered; five minutes later Shane was the one cold, and Ryan noticed instantly, he pull the cover over Shane too, bringing them closer against him and, finally, resting his head in his shoulder.

Forty minutes in and his brother was asleep. Shane snapped a pic of him and when he put the phone back down he put his arm around Ryan. Ryan got closer. A couple minutes later Ryan was practically sitting on his lap. And Shane wasn’t cold anymore, didn’t even know how he would ever be cold again.

And he had stopped counting the minutes when he felt Ryan looking at him again, like he had been doing in that parking lot a week or so ago, and now no car was going to hunk, he looked at his brother and found him deeply asleep, so he said ‘fuck it, let’s be brave’, and put his hand to Ryan’s cheek.

“Shane” Ryan whispered, and moved his head closer.

“I’m about to kiss you, baby, so you better tell me if you don’t want to” answered Shane. Ryan put his own hand in Shane’s check, and lost some of his balance, almost falling on top of Shane’s chest. They smiled, but only for a short second, because after that they were kissing.

Ryan didn’t remember Shane’s lips that sweet and hot, he closed his eyes, and Shane moved his hands to Ryan back to urge him closer, even closer, as close as possible. And Ryan smiled in the kiss and opened his eyes just a little just to know if Shane was closing his. He was.

Ryan was one second away from climbing into Shane’s lap when Shane sweetly pushed him away, Ryan looked at him confused and a little scared.

“I’m not about to give my brother a free show” Shane whispered and let Ryan slip back into his arms.

The movie ended and Shane discovered he hadn’t even realized till the credits were rolling because he was to distracted looking at Ryan, happy and complacent in his arms. He ended up falling asleep too.

Scott woke up with his back hurting like a bitch, he stretched and looked around, what time was it? “Hey, Shane, little brother” he said, wishing for Shane to bring him a glass of water. Then he saw his brother was asleep in the couch next to him “Oh, would you look at that” he said smiling, seeing Ryan asleep in his arms.

He stood up, tried not to make noise and got his own glass of water. That brother of his was head over for heels for his little friend, and he was going to be the one playing cupid for them to realize Ryan had to expend next Christmas with them. Idiots, he thought has he drank the glass of water.

An hour or so later those two woke up, Scott was watching a Netflix documentary and chilling, but with the phone prepared to catch The Awakening.

He snapped a pic of his brother waking up, one of him smiling because Ryan was cuddling with him, one of him panicking because _Ryan was cuddling with him._ One of Ryan waking up. And three or more of Shane jumping towards him and trying to get the phone from his brother’s hand.

“What’s happening?” mumbled Ryan, rubbing his eyes “Shane?”

“Be right back, I’m killing my brother, just a sec, baby.”

“Oh, so is ‘baby’ now?” Scott laughed.

“I called him babe for ages.”

“And still you always told me to shut up when I asked for your boyfriend, That’s mean. And lying!”

“I wasn’t lying. Give me the phone!” Shane reached for the phone, putting his leg in between Scott’s legs.

“In a million years Shane” Scott was biting Shane’s arm. Scott is biting Shane’s arm? Ryan though, rubbing his eyes, still heavy with sleep.

At some point, just after Scott hit the floor, armchair included, Ryan started to realize what was happening. What had happened. And he decided he needed to go home, think, like properly think about what had happened and then, when Scott wasn’t around trying to get enough material to blackmail them to their graves, he would talk to Shane.

“I have to go back home, Shane… Scott” he said, standing up, looking at both brothers fighting on the floor.

Shane stood up and kicked his brother’s hand when he tried to grab his ankle. “Oh, yeah, okay, Ry, see you…”

“New Year’s Eve?” Why did he say that? Tomorrow, Ryan wanted to see him tomorrow, no, before that, what time was it? Could he see Shane again before bedtime?

“Yeah, right”, he said moving towards the door with Ryan.

“Oh! Would you look at that!” Scott shouted from the floor, phone in hand.

The third time he kissed Shane was because his brother, Scott, had hung almost a dozen different mistletoes from the celling in Shane’s house, and he refused to let it go. Ryan tippy-toed and brushed his lips against Shane’s, blushing so much even his neck was red, Shane smiled and waved him goodbye. He was waiting for the lift when he heard him shout “Scott!” followed by a loud noise, Ryan supposed they would be alright.

Shane didn’t kill his brother that night, but only because he was too preoccupied by what had happened on his couch to do so. He was lying in bed, his pone in his hand, thinking about what he should tell Ryan ‘Hey, I’ve loved you for some time now’ didn’t seem light enough to be sent via telegram; so he kept thinking, maybe ‘Hey, I enjoyed this afternoon’, but of course he did! And What if Ryan said he didn’t? He would propel himself out of the window, very dramatic to die this close to Christmas it’d ruin it for his family! And, wait, why had Ryan said he would see him in New Year’s Eve? Didn’t he want to see him sooner? It was only the 27th, well, the 28th now; So at the end, Shane turned again in bed and decided not to send anything to Ryan.

Ryan was waiting, he thought Shane would, at least, send him a ‘Did you get safe to home?’ text, or something. Like he didn’t usually text him things like that, but… But he wanted to talk to Shane, and Shane had looked like he would want to talk to Ryan too. Ryan was on the bed, cover over his head, looking at Shane’s texts, he called him baby a lot. That meant Shane liked him, didn’t it?

He closed his eyes, he was acting stupid! Of course Shane liked him! He had kissed him! On multiple occasions; well, only once motu proprio but, but! He had kissed him nice and sweet that same afternoon, only a couple of hours ago! So why wasn’t Shane using one of the best excuses to talk to him?

And why did he had to say he would see him in NYE? He was an idiot! He wanted to see Shane right that second, not only see him… And now he was stuck, what was he supposed to do? Text Shane that he had gotten home safely after two hours of being home? What would Shane think, that he had bolted from his house just to go and party alone?

He remembered the girl at the Buzzfeed party, that had been the first time they had kissed, and Shane, clearly wasn’t feeling the same then, why would it be different now? Maybe Shane had only kissed him out of pity, or boredom, maybe, for Shane, kissing his friends wasn’t a big thing.

So he closed his eyes, and tried really hard to stop looking for motives to cry, and tried even harder to fall asleep and stop looking at his phone every two seconds just to see if Shane had written to him.

He woke up and started to think. ‘What do I want?’ And he thought about it while he worked out, while he was showering and having breakfast. He thought about it for three days straight. He thought about it again while he was dressing up to go to that NYE party he had convinced Shane (paying his entry and everything) they should go to almost four months ago; “It’s my Christmas present!” he had said then to Shane.

“Ryan, I don’t want it, it’s too expensive, we’ll see each other in New Year, don’t worry.” Shane had replied while he typed on his laptop.

“Not for you, for me!” Ryan told him, wining Shane’s attention, he opened his eyes big and turned his lips down.

Shane sighed, “I’m still buying you a ugly sweater as a present” he said. Ryan smiled and bought both tickets.

Thinking about it now, Shane hadn’t given him the ugly sweater yet! Maybe he wanted to give it to him when his brother wasn0t around. Or maybe Shane didn’t really mean it, maybe there was no ugly sweater for him. He decided to text Shane before he started to cry because of an ugly sweater.

“Taking a taxi.

Be ready.”

He texted; and got outside and into the taxi he had booked, bouncing his leg up and down while they tried to get to Shane’s house in the horrific traffic. About five minutes later, Shane texted back.

“A taxi?

You being fancy.

Is this a date?”

Answered Shane. It wasn’t a date, not even with him picking Shane up to expend one of the most significant dates of the year together. And they were going there alone, yeah, okay, there would be a lot of other people around, Ryan knew that, but their friends weren’t going to be there, nor Scott (who already had invitations to another party), nor their Buzzfeed colleges. But it wasn’t a date. Because Ryan had decided he needed more proof of Shane liking him (not loving, he had already decided that was impossible; he could do with like. He would throw a fucking party if Shane liked him, in fact), before he even started to think about planning dates. A dark place in his mind was already planning their wedding at Disneyworld.

“Hey, baby, let’s rock!” said Shane getting into the taxi a good half an hour later. And Ryan blushed all over. ‘Baby’, he could hear that all day long and not be tired of it.

They got to the place and a waitress sat them at a table. Shane suddenly felt widely underdressed with his stupid Christmas shirt under his jacket, Ryan, on the other hand, was looking impressive. Shane had slicked his hair down, but next to how careful and skillful Ryan’s hairstyle looked, he surely was thinking Shane hadn’t put any attention to his looks, well that wasn’t true! He had expended half an hour just picking up the perfect bowtie to go with his half red Santa Clause and half green Christmas tree shirt.

He swallowed when he felt Ryan looking up at him, as if he was waiting for Shane to start the conversation.

“I… I didn’t know there was a fancy diner included” said him, and felt like and asshole.

“Oh” Ryan said, Shane could feel how sad his comment had made Ryan “If you have already eaten…”

“No”, Shane interrupted “No, sorry, Ry, what I mean is… This is fancy, and you’re looking handsome as hell, devastatingly handsome, in fact. I think I’m underdressed, and pretty much about to have a heart attack.”

“Shane Madej, are you… scared?”

“Not scared, Ryan, don’t be stupid, just…” Shane laughed, Ryan laughed with him; the waitress served them the first plate. “Thanks” Shane said, and put his hand over Ryan’s for a second before taking the fork.

“So… you’ve been busy this days?” he asked, not knowing what to say. ‘Kiss me already and let’s go home!’, what’s all he was thinking, but the date had been expensive and… and now he was calling it a date, could it be a date even when he had planned it even before knowing he may have a shoot with Shane? Did he have a shoot with him? He had touched his hand and…

They, for grace of some miracle, finished dinner without dying of either anticipation or embarrassment; after that Shane discovered the party had open bar! What was a terrible addition to all the wine he had during dinner, and the dizziness Ryan made him feel. 

At some point everyone watered around a set of big televisions, they were two or more rooms for the party, all of them with the big televisions, Shane had notice because he had been trying to distract himself with every single little thing he could find; Ryan and Shane had been doing a great job of not talking at all about feelings and, instead, they been making jokes about this or that; so when a girl approached Ryan, Shane was about to throw a tantrum, why hadn’t he asked Ryan if it was indeed a date? Why hadn’t he said ‘Can this be a date, please?’, why hadn’t he wrapped himself around Ryan’s spectacular body and yelled ‘Mine!’ before anyone had the chance to do so?

“Do you have anyone to kiss at midnight?” she said. The insolence! Who was she? Shane moved a little closer to Ryan, not that the girl seemed to notice, but Ryan did, he looked at him, Shane smiled weakly, Shane was thinking then ‘Who am I to tell Ryan not to kiss the girl? She’s pretty.’

Ryan was thinking, he was thinking about how they hadn’t said anything about kissing each other during the dinner, not even jokingly; he thought it would be stupid of him to tell the girl that he had someone to kiss, just to see Shane looking at him like he didn’t understand. That it’d be devastating if some other girl approached Shane and asked him and Shane saying yes. He also thought it was quite stupid of him to still not believe that Shane had feelings for him when he jumped to believing so quickly in other occasions. So he made a decision, if he could, the fourth time he was going to kiss Shane was going to be on New Year’s Eve.

“Yes, sorry” he said, and tried not to look at Shane.

“Oh, too bad” the girl said, and instead of bolting the girl turned to Shane. “What about you, big boy?”

Ryan was going to scream. What if Shane said no? He was stupid, a dumb child with a big crush on the ‘big boy’.

“I’m kissing him” said Shane. And Ryan looked at him, not believing what he had heard. Shane smiled at him, the girl said ‘oh, sorry’ or something similar and went away.

“Are you?”

“I’m not kissing her, that for sure. ‘Big boy’, what kind of…?

“You are a big boy…, kinda.”

“Oh, look, and now I’m not kissing you either!” Ryan laughed and then stopped doing so because Shane was looking at him, smiling warmly, and Ryan stood quiet, looking back. Shane moved closer, he was about to put his hand in Ryan’s face, or that was what Ryan thought he was doing, Shane ruffled his hair instead. “I’m sorry, you can’t be the handsome one and had the better hair too. It’s the law, Ryan.”

“What law…” Shane did it again. “Stop! You idiot!” he said laughing, and then he was pressed against Shane chest, Shane put his face in Ryan’s chest. “You’re the handsome one too, you know.”

Shane smiled, and squeezed him, Ryan was about to say something about bigfoot squeezing his press to death, but instead he happily hugged Shane back. “We’re a couple of idiots, aren’t we?”

“We’ve been for a long time” Ryan said back “But I like how that sounds.”

“Yes, me too.”

And then everyone was cheering, a New Year starting before their eyes.

And Ryan kissed Shane, and Shane kissed Ryan, sweet and hard, slow and hot. And Ryan, even while he wanted to be doing much more than kissing, couldn’t be happier doing anything other than kissing Shane.


End file.
